Film & Theater studies Final Assignment

This assignment has 8 questions, each of which is paired with a film clip that will be screened IN CLASS during the last week of class. Monday 4 clips will be screened, and Wednesday the other 4 clips will be screened. You should take notes in class, then type up your answers at home and submit them online here by Friday 12pm May 6. If you are late on Friday your score will be reduced one letter grade. If you are later than midnight Friday night your assignment will not be accepted. You are allowed to consult your textbook but you should not consult other sources (and if you do, you must cite them). We are obligated to report any case in which Blackboard flags work as suspected plagiarism.

1. How does mise-en-scène produce meaning this clip?
2. How does cinematography produce meaning in this clip?
3. How does editingproduce meaning in this clip?
4. How does this clip play with genre?
5. What documentary strategies are used in this clip, and to what effect?
6. How could we interpret this clip using feminist film theory?
7. This clip is from a digital 3D film; how does it suggest relationships between the Past and Future of Cinema?
8. What avantgardestrategies are used in this clip; what norms could this expose or challenge?
Your answers should:
• Consist of several sentences
• Relate the question’s topic to specific detailsfrom the clip
• Make an argument/claim interpreting specificdetails from the clip
• Demonstrate your understanding of thequestion’s topic
• Demonstrate your ability to analyze cinema

 

For example, here is a SAMPLE question and answer:
“sample Question: Discuss how editing functions in this Verizon commercial.
sample Answer: This commercial uses editing to suggest how the wireless network “connects” across the country. Its shots are jump cuts in the sense that they quickly leap from one place and time to another; but, especially at the start, they use continuity editing to suggest the Verizon guy is actually travelling from place to place.For example, a match on action is suggested when he rolls in a desk chair to the right of the frame the walks in from the left side of the frame after the cut to a newscene. The visual editing coordinates with the repeated dialogue of “can you hear me now,” asked in each shot,as if the Verizon guy is testing how far he can “jump”without losing a signal. When the viewer invests a sense of continuity across these shots—the idea that this character is travelling across the country—the viewer helps produce the idea the ad wants to sell: that even though you can’t see the wireless network, it extends without gaps across all of the U.S. ”